Better Together
by Pookieh
Summary: An unexpected turn of events leads Katniss to finally face both her and Peeta's demons. One-shot written for Ro Nordman's Write-Me-A-Story HG challenge.


The house is silent when she closes the door behind her, placing her sheath of arrows down on the table in the hall. She listens again and wonders if he is awake yet. When she untangled herself from his heavy arms in the early hours of the morning, he was hovering somewhere between sleep and consciousness; the corners of his mouth lifted slightly into a peaceful smile.

It was like night and day, the change from sleeping alone to sharing a bed with him again. They had always worked better as a team, regardless of the situation or task. So it was only natural that they pick up where they had left off, comforting each other in the darkness in hopes of fending off the inevitable nightmares that plagued them during the night.

She lifted her fingertips to brush her chapped lips; a slight smile upon her face as she recalled the feel of his soft lips beneath hers. She wasn't sure if he'd even remember the kiss that she had placed upon his warm, soft mouth before she left. It was her way of saying "thank you", for it was the first night since returning to District 12 that her nightmares did not disturb her sleep.

As she quietly makes her way down the hall, a loud thud from the kitchen startles her, causing her grip on her bow to tighten and her free hand to instinctively reach over her shoulder in search of an arrow. But she comes up empty handed, panic setting in when she remembers that she left her arrows by the front door. As not to draw attention to her presence, she tiptoes to the doorway of the kitchen and cautiously peers around the corner. Relief washes over her when she finds him seated at the table, his back and shoulders hunched over and staring into the bottom of an empty glass.

Realizing the absence of any imminent danger, she lets out an audible yet shaky breath and lowers her bow to balance it against the wall. His head jerks up at the sound, his eyes dark and his lips pressed together so tightly they are barely visible.

"Peeta, thank—"

"Where the hell is he?" he interrupts, piercing her with an incriminating stare.

She stares back at him blankly, momentarily stunned by his sudden outburst and the harshness of his tone. "Where's who?" she asks slowly as she places a hand on the counter.

"Don't play games with me, you know _who_, is that were you ran off to this morning? To be with him?"

She knits her brow in confusion. Something is wrong. Something about his voice. It sounds like his voice, but there's an eerily familiar edge of suspicion and reproach to it. His normally steady hand trembles slightly against the rough surface of the table and the corner of his left eye twitches, just below the burn scar where his eyebrow is finally starting to grow back.

"Who, Peeta?" she repeats again slowly.

She watches closely as he reaches for a familiar bottle of clear liquid next to his empty glass. It's one of the spares that they like to keep on hand in the house for when Haymitch's own stash runs dry, to keep him from falling into withdrawal. It doesn't happen as often as it used to, not with the supply trains running again so frequently, but she'd rather ere on the side of caution just to be safe.

He swirls the content of the bottle twice before emptying every last drop into the dirty glass, no doubt the same one she left in the sink earlier this morning before she headed out for her usual morning trek though the woods. She startles when he slams the empty bottle back down onto the table, causing a bit of his drink to spill over the edge of the glass. He looks up to meet her heated stare and narrows his eyes.

"Are you deaf? W_here…is…he_?"

Unsure of how to answer him, she clears her throat a few times in hopes of buying herself a few more moments to figure out what he's talking about exactly.

He doesn't break their stare as he lifts the glass to his lips and drains it in one shot, slamming the empty glass down onto the table once he's finished, his hand still gripping it tightly. "The bedroom, it reeks of _you_. And _him_."

Her eyes widen in shock, taken completely off guard by his words and the venom of his tone. A flash of something metallic from beneath the table catches her attention and her eyes dart over to the counter. A knife is missing from the butcher block, the small one she uses to skin the squirrels she still hunts just for him.

She watches intently as he turns the blade in his hand, the sharp edge pressed dangerously close to the underside of his wrist. A familiar clink of metal against wood sends a shudder down her spine. From her vantage point, she can see that the hand wielding the knife is handcuffed to one of the table legs. Not that it matters much. Given his current state of mind, if he really wants to hurt her, no amount of wood or metal could stop him.

Even though his cheeks are still slightly hollow and he hasn't gained back all the muscle from when they trained in preparation for the Quarter Quell, he's still strong. It's made evident when his hand randomly spasms causing his grip to tighten around his glass and the muscles of his arm tense, the blue hue of his veins protruding out against his pale skin.

She gathers as much confidence as she can muster and answers in an even tone, "I don't know who you're talking about, Peeta." She takes a cautious step forward, the same way she would approach a wounded animal with her arms out in front of her, palms facing up in hopes of showing him that she means no harm. "There's no one else here, it's just us. You and me."

It had only been a few months since he moved into her house, a decision he'd left up to her after they started sharing her bed again. She wasn't quite ready to say goodbye to her home, not when she could still feel Prim's presence in every room, in every hallway. She would hold on to what little she had left of her sister for as long as she could.

Since the move, she's only ever witnessed a handful of his setbacks. All of which she had somehow managed to survive, both physically and emotionally. That's not to say there weren't episodes that went unnoticed during her brief absences to town or to the woods, ones that he never mentioned to her or Dr. Aurelius.

The worst one had been the time she found him in the shower one night. She discovered afterwards that there was an old bottle of shampoo hidden under the sink that her prep team had left behind after they had visited for the wedding dress photo shoot. She didn't even know it was there, but he had unfortunately found it. The smell of roses triggered it.

Thankfully he hadn't locked the bathroom door that day. By the time she found him, he was huddled in the corner of the shower with his head buried in his hands as streams of icy cold water beat down on him from every direction. He was muttering to himself, most of his words incoherent, until he went eerily silent. Then he whispered her name and she thought the worst was over.

The profanity that soon followed took her off guard; it was enough to bring tears to her eyes. But what sent her over the edge was when he fisted his hands and began to strike himself, chanting her name over and over as though the mere thought of her was so disturbing his only choice was to beat it out of himself. It took her almost an hour to finally coax him out from under the shower head and into her lap. It was the steady stroking of her hand against his hair and the sound of her singing that eventually brought him back to his senses.

But this was new. This was different. He'd never consciously acknowledged her or questioned her like this before. Was this even an episode? It had to be.

Like the flip of a switch, the tension in his shoulders suddenly fades, his grip on his glass loosens, and his face no longer appears menacing, but rather lost or confused. "You and me?" he repeats, his voice noticeably gentler, curious even. "Why am I here?"

Not convinced that he's in the clear quite yet, she takes a deep breath and straightens her stance. "You live here, Peeta, with me. This is my—I mean—_our_ home."

He nods his head in understanding, as though he's placated by her answer. "Are we married?"

"Uh, no." It occurs to her that perhaps he's confused by the memory of the ruse he had concocted prior to the Quarter Quell, of their "marriage" and her false pregnancy.

"Are we…together?"

She hesitates. They have yet to define their relationship, but she knows the feelings are there, that they are more than just friends. More than just two people who comfort each other during the night. But together as a couple?

"No," she sighs.

"Oh." His face drops and his teeth toy with his bottom lip. "Do you want to be?"

Her chest tightens as she stares back at him, her answer on the tip of her tongue but unable to bring herself to admit the words she knows he longs to hear. Would he even remember if she spoke them? But before she can answer, the switch is flipped again and he jerks his head up to face her as his fist tightens once again around the knife in his hand beneath the table.

"Where are they?"

They? She can only assume that he is referring to his family. His father, his brothers, his wretch of a mother. They're all gone. Never coming back. The same way that Prim is never coming back.

She can feel the tears stinging the backs of her eyes. It was her fault. All of it. No matter how hard Dr. Aurelius tries to persuade her otherwise, every way she looks at it, it always boils down to the same thing.

Her.

Should she tell him the truth? Would it make things easier if she lied to him? Said that they just moved to another district? No. No matter what state he's in, he deserves to hear the truth. The truth is uncomplicated and in this instance perhaps harsh, but in the end it will be for the best.

"I'm sorry, Peeta, but they're gone. They died when the Capitol bombed the district. They never had a chance. It…it was all my fault. I'm so sorry, I never meant for any of this to—"

"You're the Mockingjay, real or not real?" His eyes narrow and darken again, his blue irises now borderline black.

"Real," she sighs, lowering her head to stare at the tile floor. "Or at least I was at one time."

He purses his lips as he contemplates her answer. "You murdered my family, real or not real?"

Her head snaps back up in disbelief. "Not real!" she gasps, stunned by his accusation. He scrapes the blade of the knife that's still in his hand against the chain links of the handcuff, the sound sending a shiver up her spine. Her pulse quickens as the muscles in her body tense, preparing to defend herself or run, if need be. "I didn't _murder_ your family," she manages as calmly as possible through heavy breaths.

"But it's because of you that they're no longer here, right?"

She remains silent. The guilt she has been desperately trying to suppress is now once again heavy upon her shoulders, leaving her too hurt and too confused by the accusation to defend herself.

"That's what I thought," he says as he looks away from her, his eyes glassy and red. He runs a hand through his disheveled hair before dropping his forehead down onto the table with such force it's sure to leave a mark. Her heart aches when he begins to cry, silently at first but soon his chest heaves in anguish. "Why?" he croaks. "Why would you take them from me?" he gasps between unbridled sobs. "I never had the chance to see my child."

She falters for an instant, unsure if she heard his words correctly. "Child? What child? Peeta, you don't have any—"

"Stop! Just stop!" he shouts, finally bringing his hand from beneath the table up to slam it against the wood before pointing the tip of the blade in her direction. "You killed my wife and my unborn child…it should have been you that burned."

He stuns her silent once again; his words cutting deeper than any knife he could possibly yield, reopening the emotional scars upon her heart that had finally began to heal. She watches as he pounds his fist on the table again and loses his composure all over again right in the middle of their modest kitchen, a mixture of his sobs and incoherent curses filling the air.

It's then that her tears finally begin to fall and she crumples to her feet, wrapping her arms tightly around her knees to draw them in close. She doesn't hold back this time, allowing herself to shed the tears she's held back for so long. This is too much for her. She feels the walls of this life she has been left to live in begin to close in around her. How can she possibly help him when she can't even help herself?

It's because he's right, in a way. She did kill his wife and their unborn child.

They died the day she released that arrow into the force field, the day the flash of lightning struck the tree, the day the hovercraft rescued her but left him behind. That was the day she knew she had lost him forever, condemned him to a sentence worse than death. That was the day the girl she once was died.

The sound of metal hitting the tile floor causes her to lift her face and peer over her arms. To her side is the discarded knife and seated on the floor in front of her, still tethered to the table with his wrist red and raw from the handcuff, is her Peeta. His eyes are no longer black, but rather the bright, brilliant blue of the sky after the passing of the storm.

"Katniss?" he whispers. "Are you alright? Did I hurt you?" His eyes rake over her body in search of any marks, any indication of pain that he may have inflicted upon her.

A strangled sob escapes her throat as she takes in his crestfallen face. She shakes her head as she wipes the heated tears from her face with the front of her shirt.

"I'm so sorry," he sighs as he reaches out to her with his free hand. "Don't cry. Please don't cry, I'm so sorry, Katniss."

She doesn't hesitate from scrambling across the floor and into his lap, locking her arms tight around his neck as she buries her face into his dampened shirt. He chants his apology into her hair over and over as he rocks her gently in his arms, pulling her body close to his as their chests heave against each other.

No matter how many times they try to take him away from her or turn him against his will, she knows that deep down he has never stopped loving her. He never will stop loving her. This is where she belongs. With him.

Because they are better together. They always have been and always will be.


End file.
